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About the Magazine

One school.
Four majors.
Endless possibilities.
Compass is an online magazine produced by the School of Communication's Advanced Reporting and Photojournalism students at Loyola University Chicago. It profiles alumni who have successful careers in various communication fields including journalism, advertising, public relations and nonprofit organizations.

Jenn Bane

Jenn Bane posted a new story to her blog every day for a year following her 2012 graduation from Loyola. The posts were a mix of funny stories, things she had seen that day, or anything else on her mind.

“They weren’t always super interesting but I just wanted to get it out there every day for a year,” Bane said.

Little did she know, several of the makers of Cards Against Humanity—the party game known for its outrageous and inappropriate humor—were following her blog and were fans of her writing and sense of humor.

They emailed her offering a job at their company in Chicago, where she has been working for the past three years now.

Bane, 25, is from Crown Point, Ind. and graduated from Loyola with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a marketing minor.

The U.S. was still recovering from the recession at this time and jobs in the journalism field were scarce, causing Bane to take a job as a technical writer.

“It was an old school job that I wasn’t super happy with, so I was constantly searching for better opportunities,” Bane said.

It was during this time that she created the blog which would catch the Cards Against Humanity makers’ attention.

She now works as the Community Lead for Cards Against Humanity, where she handles the company’s email and fan base outreach, along with doing copy writing and editing.

To go along with the company’s notoriously dark sense of humor, Bane employs comedic creative writing into her daily duties.

“When I was in school, I didn’t think comedy writing and a real person adult job could be married in that way,” Bane said. “Now I know that there are always opportunities out there.”

Bane hopes to write a book in the future about her life as a comedic writer and her experiences at Cards Against Humanity.

She cites her amazing professors, particularly Dr. Connie Fletcher, as the highlight of her Loyola experience.

“Her classes blew my mind and were the reason I wanted to keep writing,” Bane said.

Her favorite class was Fletcher’s Investigative Journalism, in which students use investigative reporting to uncover something interesting for their end-of-semester project.

“There was no hand holding along the way, we were just given an assignment and the tools to do it, so it was like a real, adult job,” Bane said.

While this class helped Bane prepare for her future career as a Community Lead, she urged undergrads not to stress too much during their transition to post-grad life.

“Go easy on yourself and don’t make fun of anyone who needs to live in their parents’ basements for a while after they graduate,” she said. “Just be nice to everyone.”